Trap - too many twists spoil an M. Night Shyamalan flick

Think of M. Night Shyamalan (MNS) and you are transported to a realm where nothing is what it seems. Before The Sixth Sense, not many knew that one could ‘see dead people’; after Signs, the interest in aliens doubled; Split became a template for filmmakers on how to successfully combine old characters with new.

However, what made his films take the lead at the box office was the one final twist that would throw the audience completely off. Sadly, in recent years, MNS seems to have fallen prey to his own formula, and that’s why his latest work, Trap,doesn’t feel like his best.

Does Trap really revolve around a serial killer?

When Trap's was released last month, it clearly showed that Josh Hartnett is a serial killer named The Butcher, taking his daughter to a concert. Such detail is usually squirreled away for later in a normal director’s film, but M. Night Shyamalan is not a normal director; he showed his hand in the trailer to make the audience wonder what would happen next.

Actresses Ariel Donoghue and Saleka Night Shyamalan – the director’s daughter – also join Hartnett as the daughter Riley and Lady Raven respectively who take the story forward and are integral to the plot.

Things go from better to worse when Cooper (Hartnett) realizes that the extraordinary police presence at the venue is because the FBI had learned that he might be in attendance. Does Cooper manage to evade the law enforcement agencies or does he fall into the trap, that’s what most of the film is about.

Josh Hartnett carries the entire film on his shoulders

From the first frame to the final credits, the audience will be unable to move from their seats because things are happening all over the place. From the suspected serial killer entering the ‘trap’ to the many decisions that might result in his undetected escape, Hartnett does the job well.

He may not have done big films due to his poor choice of projects in the last decade, but the way he carries the entire film on his shoulders is commendable. His facial expressions, his constant mood swings, and his cool demeanor are what were required from the central character.

It would have been hard to successfully play both the concerned father and a serial killer in hiding, but Josh Hartnett does it well. Kudos to MNS for conceiving such a character as well as executing it so that the audience both sympathizes with and hates him simultaneously.

Actors break the fourth wall for no reason

Usually, actors don’t break the fourth wall in major Hollywood films but in Trap, most characters talked to the camera, which looked odd. It would have seemed like a good idea had they been talking to the audience, but most of the times it was two characters talking to each other. Strange, even by M. Night Shyamalan standards!

Also, Trap is the first Shyamalan flick to feature a soundtrack but it is sort of distracting as well. For a director who thrives on keeping the audience on the edge of their seats, the music only served interruption. Since the film was set at a concert, it was inevitable, but the time of these occurrences could have been shortened drastically.

OCD, what OCD?

Also, no actor besides Josh Hartnett had anything to offer to the final product. Sadly, his character was shown to be suffering from OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) but in the first half, he showed no symptoms of the disease. He only displayed OCD once another character pointed it out to the other characters, and the audience.

Saleka is good, but should she be there?

And then there was Saleka Shyamalan who looks good in both her singing and acting avatar but it would have been great had a bigger name like Selena Gomez been cast to make the concert seem grander. She has a bright future no doubt but she seemed a little off in some scenes where she was required to be a diva away from the spotlight.

Why Trap will not be counted among Shyamalan's best works

Just like too many cooks spoil a broth, too many twists spoil a Shyamalan flick! For a director who made a name for himself due to ‘that one twist’ which no one saw, he has come a ‘long’ way. Had he stayed loyal to the one twist per film formula, things would have remained the same but he evolved, and not for the better.

In Trap, there are times when the audience may feel that the film could end then, but one twist after another keeps them simultaneously engaged and distracted.

Revealing the serial killer in the film’s trailer might seem to be a masterstroke for the director but he forgot that the audience’s attention span has also shrunk. They are no longer interested in watching a 100-minute film just for an insane twist that might not even take place. Yes, the twist in this film was insane but on a list of Shyamalan twists, it will be placed at number 10 with one being the best.

Add to that the unnecessary distractions and the forceful talking-to-the-camera technique, and you get a film which seems amateurish. M. Night Shyamalan needs to up his game if he wants to stay relevant, otherwise he will end up as a has-been who could have been something.